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About Ron Mexico

I'm the furthest thing from an expert as an American much more well versed in the tactics and strategies of baseball or American football than football, but here goes nothing anyway. I remember being drawn into FM many years ago after being enamored with how well the text sim part of the game was (doubly so with the LLM style, because the best thing to do when I was clueless was to with the weakest teams in the world but I digress), but I just couldn't wrap my head around the tactical part of the game.
After so many frustrations and more than my fair share of rage quits, I decided to give it one more go. Rather than looking at the tactic creator and list of shouts as a menu and feeling like I was missing out if I didn't use all/most of them, I just decided to build a formation that a) utilized the best players I had at a position that made sense and b) tried to cobble that into a formation that had some semblance of coherence. Which by that, I mean "hey, I have this guy that could be a playmaker, guess I need someone for him to distribute to-- here's a guy that can run like a gazelle. Let's see how that works".
As for the shouts, I didn't feel confident enough without seeing the team play, so I didn't start with any. Literally zero. Ultimately I noticed that my top 3 or 4 choices up front were all tall and better jumpers than pretty much anyone in the division, so I added floating crosses. Once I felt like I had that under control, I started looking at scouting reports. Again, I'm still a tactical novice, but if I noticed my opponent had an attacking threat in one area, I responded by being more conservative in that area. If I noticed their keeper was distributing the ball short, only then would I tick on trying to take that away.
End result was I took a Worcester City team that was predicted to be in the relegation mix of the National League North all the way to the title without using the player search, without downloading a tactic, without doing any of it. And in doing so, it validated all those false starts and banging my head against the wall along the way. I went from trying so hard to build these elaborate schemes and making sure everything is just perfect to just saying, let's just try to put our people where they're not on offense and try to put people in their way on defense.
Hope that helps in some way or another. I'm the last person you want to ask about emulating X style but if the goal is to have fun, I feel like I accomplished that.

And tempo was one of those things I had completely neglected to factor into the equation. I do have a tendency to play a higher tempo (but not breakneck in design-- i.e. Higher on the mentality ladder but no additional team instructions to go even faster) but the reason it never crossed my mind previously is I was only looking at it from the point my attacker was free-- I discounted the effort and tempo that led him finding that space in the first place. Good idea and excited to tinker some more (and a thanks to whomever suggested that Touch was the ideal playground to experiment. So true.). I know tempo won't be the magic bullet, but even if it leads to another adjustment then all the better.
Thanks again for the help (and also for the stickies that helped immensely). Between those and the analysis threads, it's really changed how I look at both the game and even how I watch football. Much appreciated.

So I'm having a bit of trouble in my beta save-- not tactically per se as I'm managing to create enough chances and lurking through the boards has been a huge help in making adjustments during the match.
My question is in regards to the attributes for the player converting that opportunity-- let's say a 1-on-1 versus the keeper. I've seen finishing (of course) and composure (so as to not blow it) being the 2 key factors in the moment turning that created chance into a goal. Is there something I'm missing? Concentration maybe? I've also thought to look at the personality profile and see if it's a mental thing with big games, etc.
Essentially, I feel like I've come a long way from being the American who haphazardly just through players into a tactic and hoped for the best, but I feel like I'm on the cusp here of making a breakthrough with this part that's always given me fits.
Apologies in advance for not having particular players to key in on as it's been more of a general issue for me than "Why isn't player X converting his chances?!?! Come on SI?!". I do have a tendency to play in the lower divisions which I know is making it harder on myself, but I feel like the keeper is going to be just as poor as my attacker so it's essentially a wash.
Thanks all for the assistance